Thursday, July 30, 2009

These are a couple of articles I wrote for Ex-Gay Watch. The Michael Brown one really sapped me. I transcribed a 40 minute episode from his radio show which entailed listening to it at least 4 times. I felt so dirty...

"Brown’s feigned interest in “building bridges” seems like it was designed to inspire condescension-conversations that are meant to elicit an angry response. That way they can see our supposedly explosive nature in person—confirming just how undeserved of legal protections we all are, and further fueling the victim/moral superiority meme."

"...In the first part of that paragraph, Chambers defines homosexuality as a state of being: “to be a homosexual.” Then switches gears, defines homosexuality as a behavior, and voilà, the pro-gay movement now considers sexual behavior to be as uncontrollable as an epileptic attack."

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

I watched this last Friday and thought it was inspiring. Not necessarily while I was watching it, but it all kind of came together at the end

It’s a movement too, called the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (linked to below). I took the liberty of typing out the "Get Involved" portion that was on the special features, and will probably be more interesting after having seen the movie (and liked it).

The special features text is rather long, so I'm including only the first paragraph after the trailer, the rest is on my other blog and linked to below.

Then comes an interesting and relevant Rachel Maddow clip and it’s corresponding transcript on the minimum wage.

I think a lot about what can be done to combat the hell on Earth that is life for much, if not most of humanity. Shortly before watching the movie I had been thinking, despondently, about what really can be done to help save the world. The segment from the special features answered it for me---end poverty. If we could end poverty, we could have the closest thing to heaven on Earth that is possible. Not that achieving that would be easy, but it’s a very simple and easy to remember solution.

Unfortunately, about 30% of the US population are united in their unreachable brainlessness, so we have our work cut out for us. I am not hopeful, but it's movies and movements like this that at least give me something to grasp onto.

Mission Statement - The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is committed to unite the poor across color lines as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty. We work to accomplish this through advancing economic human rights as named in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication and a living wage job. Continue...

And here's Rachel Maddow on the minimum wage increase and the cost of health insurance @ the 2:16 mark (transcript here):

Transcript @ 2:16:

And finally, thanks to the Democrats‘ midterm election promise in 2006, the minimum wage in America went up today. If you make minimum wage, your annual salary just went from about $13,600 to just over $15,000. Of course, that‘s if you work eight full hours every single freaking week day of every single freaking week and you never get sick and never sleep in once and never leave early ever in the whole entire year. $15,000 grand for the year.

Are you, by any chance, supporting a family on that salary? And by any chance, does your minimum wage job not offer you health insurance? If so, here is the telling awful math about being poor in America today.

The minimum wage annual salary just went up to $15,080 a year, right?

The annual average cost of family health insurance this year is $13,150. Which means if you have a minimum wage job and you want to live the fantasy of buying health insurance for your family, on average, America expects you to live off a grand total of $1,930 for everything else you need for the year - food, shelter, everything. Oh, also, we‘re the richest country on earth.

And here's one to drive the point home for we masochistic blubberers...

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Friday, July 17, 2009

During a press conference Wednesday in Wheaton, Ill., Exodus International announced a merger with Transforming Congregations, an ex-gay ministry affiliated with the United Methodist Church, and OneByOne, a similar outreach affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).

I don't know how important this is, but I enjoyed what Randy Thomas had to say about it.

the ministry also hopes to reduce the culture-war dichotomy that casts Christians as either condemning homosexuals or uncritically embracing the gay lifestyle.

It's a sad sad day when we sinners judge those Christians who make their living by conflating human sexuality with sexual perversion.______________BTW, "gay lifestyle" is code speak for hundreds of sexual partners.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Zygote: A zygote is usually produced by...an ovum from a female and a sperm cell from a male...the zygote contains DNA originating from both mother and father and this provides all the genetic information necessary to form a new individual.

CitizenLink: These new laws include a ban on partial-birth abortion, a ban that prevents medical professionals other than doctors from performing surgical abortions, and a bill that protects the conscience rights of healthcare workers to refuse participation in an abortion.

Spontaneous abortion was based on ART clinic report and was defined as loss of the entire pregnancy. Spontaneous abortion rates for ART pregnancies were compared with spontaneous abortion rates from the National Survey of Family Growth, a population-based survey of US women 15-44 years.

Results: The spontaneous abortion rate among ART pregnancies was 14.7%. This was similar to rates among pregnancies reported in the National Survey of Family Growth.

Among pregnancies conceived with the patient's oocytes and freshly fertilized embryos, the spontaneous abortion risk ranged from 10.1% among women 20-29 years to 39.3% among women older than 43.

Citizenlink: The "hate-crimes" bill, being considered… …pastors who preach against homosexuality could end up prosecuted if they are found to have "induced" a hate-crime against a self-identified homosexual by preaching from the Bible.

~~~

They’ve been “inducing” people to kill gay men for years, and it’s been working for years, and it’s been Biblical for years:

Leviticus 20:13: If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman...They must be put to death

So because the “inducement” of killing gay men, via "preaching from the Bible," hasn’t resulted in a recorded “increase” of murders, they feel that it's more important to be concerned about their freedom to further incite the murder of gay men, via "religious speech," than to be concerned about their gay brothers who are actually being murdered.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, welcomed news of the protest saying, "Ironically, there are many at this event who at one time would have been outside protesting it, but have exchanged the hurt and anger of the past for a relationship with Jesus Christ and with caring individuals in the Christian church.

"What we, as the global Christian church, must recognize is that on the other side of a picket line, are often hurting people in need of God's unconditional love," said Chambers. "While our views on these issues may differ, the bold love of Christ must prevail over opposing policies, differing views and even our own pride."